In the production of ball joint sockets for motor vehicles, usually a blank section of a steel rod or bar is hot forged in successive steps to produce a rough forging including a hollow or tubular socket portion and an outwardly radial flange portion. The rough forging is then commonly machined on an automatic machine tool to the desired precision configuration. Certain types of substantially symmetrical ball joint sockets have also been formed by producing a rough forging from a blank bar section by successive hot forging operations, as mentioned above, and then the rough forging is cold-formed between coining, piercing and trimming dies to form the finished ball joint socket without any machining operation. The ball joint sockets may also be completed or finished with a machining operation following a series of cold forming operations.
It has been found highly desirable to produce a ball joint socket without any machining operations and with a minimum number of cold forming operations while still obtaining the precision dimensions of the finished socket. It is also desirable to eliminate the machining operations and minimize the cold forming operations when producing a ball joint socket having a non-symmetrical configuration. However, none of the prior methods and apparatus for hot forging and cold forming a ball joint socket are usable for producing a non-symmetrical ball joint socket to the required final precision dimensions without requiring machining operations.